nothing was ever quite the same after those two jumped.
the world seemed to finally come crashing down onto the townsfolk, reality and morals at last making an effort at wracking their minds.
chaeyin managed to miss the little girl in green, at best slashing her mask off. clutching her bloody cheek, tears flooded the small girl's eyes as she wailed in a slush of fear and pain. frozen, the townsfolk gasped and for the first time realized what monsters they were.
running out from the crowd had been chaeyin's neighbor, who long ago messed with yoona, once kicking her to the ground for walking in front of his home.
he held his daughter and sobbed like a baby, his cries mixing in with her own, and eventually all the other children started crying, leading to the whole town becoming an intangible sobbing mess.
did they really cheer for this kid to die?
sticking out like sore thumbs, the only two not crying had been mister byun and chaeyin, who looked nothing less than livid.
"You tried to kill areum, wench!" he yelled with the most animosity.
"Where is she!" she yelled back with even more lividity.
the two were immediately turned upon by the townsfolk, who're now able see what they were so close to becoming.
heartless, foaming at the mouth with insanity.
apprehending the two, they were dealt with once the entirety of the town managed to look into their lives a bit more.
park chaeyin was immediately sent to prison with a maximum life sentence, charged for attempted murder of a child and abuse of her niece, han areum.
byun baekhyun was instead sent to a mental asylum in seoul, due to the discovery of him being clinically insane. that discovery of his mind's backwardness alone had been the only thing keeping him from being tossed in with chaeyin.
upon the two being sent away, the townsfolk never recovered from the ghosts of guilt that would run up their spines as they remembered how they acted.
meanwhile, jimin woke up to the sun's beautiful rays. at that moment felt empty, and realized that taehyung and yoona were gone.
running throughout the beach, he let out a string of barks and whines: a desperate attempt to find the two.
at first he thought they were just playing another game, hide and seek maybe.
but he then noticed the necklace around his neck, and traced it's scent to the top of the highest dock. upon seeing taehyung and yoona's shoes, piled onto each other, he realized that they really were gone.
just gone.
but did he want to believe it?
of course not.
for the longest time the pup would barely eat, denying sleep even when his body gave up on him. he would just wait at the beach, howling to both the sun and moon in hopes that they come back one day.
but they never did.
and jimin eventually came to understand that.
one day, jimin was on the verge of fading away. his body was at it's lowest, and his stomach felt like it had started eating itself. guilt and sorrow continued to bloom plentifully in his lungs, getting in the way of the hoarse strings of vocal chords he had overworked so much.
but before he managed to fade away, someone had found him.
"guk" to be exact.
gasping, the boy came across the pup and immediately took him into his frail arms. nursing jimin back to health, guk did everything in his power to understand why he acted so different in comparison to the cheerful dog he encountered at the festival days before.
it took a while, but jimin finally started to open up to the boy, at which guk was thrilled, and allowed him to glue the broken pieces of his heart back together.
at last jimin became happy again.
and at the pinnacle of his happiness he decided to share all he knew to guk.
leading the boy to an old two story shack, a forest encircling a burned down house, a beautiful greenhouse, and finally the towering sea docks, the pup somehow managed to communicate the story of his old friends.
guk took it upon himself to uncover the truth, and learn what really hid behind yoona and taehyung's bright smiles at the festival.
at last, he finally had all the pieces.
and with those pieces he created a story.
a story that spread throughout town, being told by parents to their children, and those children to their own. the story of a boy and a girl, who had the world on their shoulders. of their wretched lives, them being nothing but puppets in the hands of even more wretched people. and especially of the lapse of happiness they treasured together in their final days.
in those six fleeting nights.
the story finally came to be known as the two's,
SIX TRILLION YEARS.
